January 25, 2003	Saturday	Ziqa’ad 21, 1423

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MULTAN, Jan 24: Efforts to restore gas supply to Punjab and upcountry met with a serious setback on Friday when work on the damaged 30” diameter pipeline had to be suspended due to the exchange of fire between the warring Mazari and Bugti tribes in Rajanpur on Punjab-Balochistan border.

Reports reaching here revealed that the situation in Mazari Goth, a village situated on the confluence of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan, had been tense since Friday morning as there were reports that Bugtis were assembling on the provincial border for a possible attack.

The security and law enforcement agencies kept watch as the technicians of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited were busy, except for the time the tribes exchanged fire, in the repair work on the 30” dia gas supply line.

The shelling stopped at around 7.30pm, said Riaz Mazari, while talking to this correspondent from the area. Riaz is the son of former caretaker prime minister, Bulkh Sher Mazari.

It is learnt that Bugti started firing short-range battery-operated missiles from their area to Mazari Goth in Punjab by 3pm. The Mazaris retaliated with AK-47 rifles and other light weaponry of this category.

“It is difficult for the Mazaris to respond in same coin to the Bugtis owing to lack of matching weaponary,” an official in Rajanpur district administration said.

The Bugtis reportedly kept on firing rockets and missiles till 7pm with regular intervals. It is learnt that some eight houses in Mazari Goth had been blown up in the Bugti attack. However, no loss of human life was reported.

People of Mazari Goth told Dawn that they had digged camouflage ditches to take refuge in anticipation of attack from the Bugtis.

“Women, children and elders slipped to the ditches while the youth had been responding to the Bugti firing,” Wadera Basheer Mazari told Dawn while giving details of the fighting on Friday. He however said the attack had caused heavy losses of cattle-heads as they could not be taken to the ditches.

A tense situation was prevailing in the area when contacted last time at 9.30pm. The Mazari Goth residents said that the SNGPL technicians and security personnel, including rangers and frontier constabulary men, had left the area.

On the other hand, the gas pumped to the Punjab through the 24” supply line could hardly reach the AC-7 compression station of SNGPL near Shorkot by late on Friday evening.

“We cannot risk providing gas to CNG stations and industrial units on the gas pressure in hand due to the functioning of only one pipeline,” an SNGPL official said, saying “there is no possibility of immediate restoration of gas supply to Punjab and northern areas after the fresh Mazari-Bugti clashes.

Meanwhile, the district Nazim Dera Bugti, talking to this correspondent, opposed slapping of curfew in the area, saying the situation did not warrant such a drastic move.

Our Quetta correspondent adds: “Gas supply through the 24” diameter pipeline was restored in the afternoon from Sui,” a senior officer of the Sui administration told Dawn over telephone late evening.

A member of the team busy repairing the damaged 30” dia pipeline received burn injuries on Thursday when it caught fire after being repaired. He was rushed to Rehimyar Khan for treatment, sources claimed.

CURFEW: An unannounced dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed in Sui township on Friday to safeguard the Sui gasfield installations from further attacks.

The town has been handed over to Frontier Corps; Punjab police would also be deployed. “Nobody is allowed to step out of their homes from dusk to dawn,” police sources said.

The provincial home minister, Sardar Sanaullah Zahri and home secretary Amat Hanif Orakzai left for Islamabad on Friday evening to discuss the Rajanpur incident.